on Orkney folklore and history Murdoch McKenzie (d. 1797), hydrographer F. Marian McNeill (1885–1973) folklorist, best known for writing The Silver Bough Edwin Muir (1887–1959), author and poet Dr. John Rae (1813–1893), Arctic explorer Robert Rendall (1898–1967), poet, and amateur naturalist Rognvald Kali Kolsson (Saint Rognvald) (), Earl of Orkney 1136–1158 Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney (), Earl of Orkney Julyan Sinclair, television presenter Bessie Skea a.k.a. Bessie Grieve (1923–1996), writer of prose and poetry about nature and Orkney life Thomas Stewart Traill (1781–1862), professor of medical jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh and editor of the 8th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica Cameron Stout (b. 1971) winner of Big Brother in 2003, brother of Julyan Sinclair Margaret Tait (1918–1999), filmmaker and poet Thorbjorn Thorsteinsson (d. 1158), known as Thorbjorn the Clerk, Viking James Wallace (fl. 1684–1724), physician and botanist William Walls (1819–1893), lawyer and industrialist Thomas Webster (1772–1844), geologist and architect Sylvia Wishart (1936–2008), landscape artist Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley (b. ) folk musicians People associated with Orkney Rev. Matthew Armour (1820–1903), Sanday's radical Free Kirk Minister Sweyn Asleifsson or Sveinn Ásleifarson (), Viking, born in Caithness, who appears in the Orkneyinga Saga V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957), Australian archaeologist and philologist who excavated Maeshowe Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016), composer and Master of the Queen's Music Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet John Gow (), a notorious pirate Andrew Greig (b. 1951), writer Jo Grimond (1913–1993), Liberal Party leader and MP for Orkney and Shetland 1950–1983 David Harvey (b. 1948), footballer Ingibiorg Finnsdottir (d. ), wife of Thorfinn the Mighty, mother of Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson, subsequently queen of Scotland Eric Linklater (1899–1974), novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist and poet Margaret, Maid of Norway (1283–1290, Orkney), Queen of Scots and a Norwegian princess Robert Shaw (1927–1978), English actor and novelist William Sichel (b. 1951), ultra distance runner Luke Sutherland (b. 1971), writer of novels Jelly Roll, Sweetmeat, and Venus as a Boy Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness (b. 1954), former MP for Orkney and Shetland (1983–2001), MSP for Orkney (1999–2007), Deputy First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats See also Earldom of Orkney Prehistoric Orkney, for the ancient Orcadians Footnotes References Ethnic groups in Scotland Germanic ethnic groups People from Orkney History of Orkney